1 ABC’s for ABD’s BoF

The ABC’s for ABD’s: Tips for Working Your Way

through Dissertation to Ph.D.

Shannon Duvall Elon University

Katarzyna Wac University of Geneva

Thursday, October 2nd 2008, 5:25 - 6:25 p.m.Torreys Peak III

Shannon I Steinfadt Kent State University

Anne Weinberger BracyIntel Corporation

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Agenda

• Welcome

• Introduction to Who We Are

• Our ABC’s for ABD’s

• Recommended Resources

• Your Experiences

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Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

What’s ABD?

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Shannon I Steinfadt

• ABD at Kent State trying to finish up this academic year

• Had a long master’s degree that impacted the first year and half of her doctoral work

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Shannon Duvall

• Graduated 2006 from Duke

• Now teach at Elon (up for tenure this year)

• Had hard, hard, hard ABD road

• Now maintains gradMentalMakeover.com

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Anne Weinberger Bracy

• 2001: started PhD• 2003: went ABD• 2005: 6-month internship at Intel• 2006: got married, then proposed• 2007: began working full time• 2008: defended, had a baby, will

graduate

All-But-Dissertation All-Plus-Dissertation!

(Now is probably not the best time to ask me if it was worth it or if I would do it all over again if I had the choice….)

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Katarzyna Wac

• Did BSc-MSc in Poland, then MSc in Holland

• Started PhD in 2004 trying to finish up this academic year

• Dissertation: just a scientist-license?• ABD is more for you than for others!• First draft & communication• Emotions management along the way

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Our ABC’s for ABD’s

• Working with your advisor• 3 Fs of Research• Time Management• The Balancing Act• Emotional Management• Stress Management• Building a Support Network

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Working with your advisor

• Choose your advisor carefully– Hands on or hands off?– Do your expectations match your

advisor’s? (Is a dissertation a stapled document or a perfect work of art?)

• Be professional – not emotional– take notes, make goals– communicate clearly

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3 Fs of Research

• Focus: like your topic: what’s hot now may not be when you finish

• Feasibility: find a small sub-problem (i.e., don’t try to prove P=NP)

• Feedback: let your research, reading, advisors, and mentors lead you to (or keep you from!) additional sub-topics

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Time Management

• Be honest about how much time you spend on your dissertation

• Marathon vs. Sprint– Will you ever finish at your

current pace?– Will you survive at your

current pace?

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The Balancing Act (1)

Deadlines Accountability Feedback# of

Tasks

Work constant othersmuch,

immediategreat

variety

Relation-ships

events

+ noneothers

varies greatly

great variety

Childrendaily

mustsdependent

othersinstant +

hard-to-see∞

PhD rolling selflittle,

delayedONE

It’s not looking good for the PhD!

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The Balancing Act (2)• Dissertation

– Make your own deadlines, accountability• Work

– Must reign in, without neglecting– Coordinate with your employer– Utilize your income: housekeeping, take-

out, grocery delivery—whatever gives you more time to write!

• Relationships– Do not take for granted or take advantage– Neglect during the sprint, not the marathon!

• Children– Prioritize (all parents do this!)– Trust your instincts, relax and enjoy

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What is Important? Urgent?

Urgent, Not Important

Urgent, Important

Not Urgent, Important

Not Urgent, Not Important

Importance

Urg

ency

low high

low

high

Where will you place:• answering emails• having kids• building relationships• spiritual practice• reading papers• writing up status report• attending a wedding• playtime with your kids• food shopping• backing up your thesis• cleaning house• social engagements• debugging code• watching Heroes• celebrating anniversary• writing chapter 3• attending Grace Hopper• running experiments• exercise• writing thank you notes?

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Emotional Management

• Make decisions that take emotions into account

• No negative talk!

• Let go of guilt – it is not helpful

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Stress Management

• Take breaks (real ones)

• Change your work routine now and then

• Surround yourself with relaxing things

• Reward yourself

• Physical health– Take care of yourself– BSR: breathe, smile, relax :) 

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Building a Support Network

• Family, friends, fellow grad students, mentors, partners, collaborators– How to take care of them? – How they take care of me?

Examples: weekly girls’ brunch/support group, regular meetings with mentor (not your advisor!), accept favors from family members

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Web Resources (1)

Web pages that helped us… • Mental health tips:

www.gradmentalmakeover.com• Time management: www.tickspot.com • Reference management:

– EndNote http://www.endnote.com – RefWorks http://www.refworks.com

• Mind mapping: freemind.sourceforge.net• Local school library and resource pages

– All sorts of journals, papers, and software may be *FREELY* available from your institutions

• Ph.D. Comics http://www.phdcomics.com

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Web Resources (2)

Web pages that helped us… • portals

– IEEE Xplore http://ieeexplore.ieee.org– ACM http://portal.acm.org– Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com– CiteSeer.IST http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu– DBLP Bibliography

http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db – Consider IEEE/ACM membership and special interest

groups (SIGs) that are relevant to your research area

• Wiki Page for this Bird of a Feather Discussion http://community.anitaborg.org/wiki/index.php/The_ABCs_for_ABDs:_Tips_for_Working_Your_Way_through_Dissertation_to_PhD

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Print Resources

Books that helped us… • Hamming, R. (1986). You and your research.

Unpublished manuscript, Morristown, NJ, USA. • Kelley, R. (1999). How to be a star engineer. IEEE

Spectrum, 51-58.• Rugg, G., & Petre, M. (2004). The unwritten rules of

PhD research. Open University Press. • Bolker, Joan (1998). Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen

Minutes a Day. Holt and Co.• Zobel, J. (2004). Writing for Computer Science.

Springer.• Covey, S. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective

People. Free Press.• Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why it can

matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam.

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Questions ?

Comments ?

« Insert Your Experiences Here »

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Backup Slides

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What’s Next?

• Academia or business?

• When? Where? With Whom?